


About Face

by Quandtuniverse



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Acefic, Blanket Permission, Bodyswap, Cuddles, Fluff, Longing, M/M, Melancholy, Missing Scene, Post-Bus Ride (Good Omens), The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), asexual intimacy, cafuné, crowley is cold blooded (Good Omens), cuddling while bodyswapped, first time sleeping together in the most literal sense possible, fluff in a melancholy sort of way, longing but not really in a pining sort of way, post armageddidn't, reckless quoting of 16th century Portuguese poetry, you know exactly what missing scene it is don't even kid yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-27 23:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19799860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quandtuniverse/pseuds/Quandtuniverse
Summary: As they put Agnes Nutter’s final prophecy into action, Crowley and Aziraphale discover there is yet a new perspective to be gained about their relationship, 6000 years on.





	About Face

**Author's Note:**

> If you want a song to set the mood, [listen to this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrAJ25GwxhQ). Lyrics translation [here](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/realejo-street-organ.html).
> 
> This fic assumes Aziraphale's bodyhopping adventures are still canon in the TV show.
> 
> HUGE thanks to my dear friend Ariel, who didn’t so much beta this fic as hammer it into shape with many wonderful suggestions whenever I got stuck. Thank you so much.

By the time they arrived at the front door of Crowley’s flat, it was the dead hour, too late to be night and too early to be dawn. They were just as quiet as the streets the bus had driven through, absorbing and digesting the day’s events. 

Crowley had, in fact, been in the mood to talk, but each time he glanced at the angel beside him and caught sight of his miserable face, he couldn’t think of what to say. He almost regretted reminding Aziraphale about the bookshop fire, except the thought of letting him wander off on his own was worse. In any case, it was safer to stay together for the night.

Aziraphale didn’t object. He said nothing, unable to quantify his losses and his gains. The Earth was spinning, moon and stars shining down upon them, like it had been since Creation, and that should have made him happy: Armaggeddon didn’t happen, after all.

He couldn’t help but feel hollow at the thought of facing Heaven’s judgement.

He snapped out of his concentration, unfurrowing his brow, once Crowley had unlocked the door and the two stepped through the threshold.

“You live here?” he blurted out, faster than his self control could catch up with his thoughts.

Crowley, sauntering into the hall, looked over his shoulder.

“It’s where I keep my stuff.” He flashed him a tired smile. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, sheepishly. The flat felt more like a mausoleum than a home, though it bore clear evidence of Crowley’s tastes in décor, such as the houseplants, which Aziraphale knew he loved, and the throne-like chair, just as opulent and tacky as expected, and the, er, statues…

“...Where’s the sofa?” 

Crowley looked up from a suspicious stain on the floor.

“What?”

“You don’t have a sofa?”

“Why would I have a sofa?”

Aziraphale simply shook his head and snapped his fingers. Where there had once been an empty space surrounded by curious yet apprehensive plants, a couch had popped into existence, tartan throw blanket and all.

“No such thing as frivolous miracles now,” he muttered, retrieving the final prophecy from his coat pocket as he sat down on one end.

Crowley took the other. A familiar action, now loaded with uneasy anticipation. From the moment he had first taken Aziraphale’s side—from the moment he realized _his_ was a side that could be taken, he’d always known it would lead to retribution. He’d been expecting it from Hell, at any rate. And yet, how many times had they done exactly this? Whatever excuses they had made at first, in the end, it all came down to unavoidable proximity, and the distance was closing fast.

As far as celestial bodies go, theirs had been on a collision course for millennia; and as they spiraled towards each other's gravitational pull, the only question was who was going to acknowledge it first.

"So, how long do you think we've got?"

Although inflected like a question, it was more a statement of fact. Crowley tilted his head and offered a noncommittal noise.

"I imagine Gabriel is busy with the Army," continued Aziraphale, "but probably not for long. And if the prophecy is anything to go by..."

He trailed off, his thumb stroking the thin strip of paper.

"You're clever," said Crowley, picking up the hint. "You’ve figured out what's coming next, haven’t you?”

"I'm afraid there's only one thing this could mean," said Aziraphale. "As much as I wish it were avoidable, we're going to need to... trick them."

It was a bit like a dance, one step forward, two steps back, not that it was a dance either angel or demon would know, and certainly not a Gavotte. Aziraphale was sounding more and more like the early days of the Arrangement, an agent not entirely comfortable with the prospect of free will, even as he gave in to his own desires.

He was clever, though.

"And how do we go about that?" asked Crowley, knowing the answer already, coaxing it out of Aziraphale.

"We need to impersonate each other," he said finally. "Swap faces. Swap... bodies."

"Didn't you say we might explode, just a few hours ago?" 

"I don't think there's ever been a way of knowing," Aziraphale said wistfully. "Nobody else has ever tried. Have they? Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

A series of noises happened, settling on something resembling a "no." But Crowley wasn't done yet.

"But you possessed someone," he pointed out, "isn't that something only demons do?"

Aziraphale blushed.

"Not just someone," he mumbled. "several someones..."

"So, really, the only difference is alignment, and we both know there's no difference there."

Aziraphale's eyes were wandering across Crowley's body. It was one of the few constants from his life, even as fashions and hairstyles changed. It had always been there, hovering nearby, sometimes out of sight, always theoretically within reach, even during those times they'd fought. 

But... to inhabit it?

"To answer your previous question," said Crowley, acutely aware of the angel's thoughts, "it will probably take Beelzebub until at least tomorrow morning to get the forces of Hell to stand down. After that it's anyone's guess. And mine is that they will come for us immediately. So we need to decide now."

There was a brief, pensive silence; Aziraphale put out his hand.

"It wouldn't be the first time we just made things up as we went along," he said with a sheepish smile. "If worst comes to worst, at least we tried."

Crowley took it, the shape of his palm fitting neatly within Aziraphale's.

"It can't be any worse than what's already coming to us," he said with a considerably more bitter smile, which somehow managed to be reassuring.

"All right," Aziraphale exhaled, "I'm ready."

* * *

A wise poet once said, "the lover transforms into the beloved, by virtue of imagining too much". Since then, academics have debated its meaning as an aristotelian vs. platonic argument, whether the body or soul is transformed by the presence of love, whether reality is a pale reflection of an imagined, idealized beloved.

A much more intimate reading would be this: two beings, who had gained the power of imagination; who had been imagining for, some would say, far too long; whose imagination had allowed them feats unknown to Heaven or Hell;

who became so close, so very close

they collided

raw matter searching for form,

no longer longing,

as they found within them the most longed-for parts.

* * *

Crowley had been many things: an angel, a serpent, a human-shaped being... 

....but he had never been Aziraphale.

All of his edges had softened. His senses were realigning, not in a dramatic way, but in the way that every shapeshift came with a change in volume here or there. It was different, but it wasn't bad.

When he opened his eyes, he saw his own face contorted into a very uncomfortable expression.

"Goodness, Crowley," said the face with his voice, "how can you stand being so...?"

"Right," said Crowley, in a voice he had spent six millennia hearing, not speaking. "cold-blooded."

"Even in this corporation?" Aziraphale, whose eyes had been shut tight, turned to look at him, a beam of light falling through the sunglasses just enough to illuminate a flash of his newly reptilian eyes.

"Ever wonder why I hang out so close to you? You're like a space heater!"

Crowley got to see what his face looked like when taken aback.

"I see," said Aziraphale. "That... makes sense...."

"Don't look so glum," said Crowley, finding that speaking with Aziraphale's voice invited a natural sort of cheeriness. "You know that's not the only reason."

"Well I'm still cold," pouted Aziraphale. "So if you don't mind..."

The face that was Crowley's was now moving closer, as Aziraphale shifted nearer, near enough that their shoulders touched.

"Oh, you're right, this is warm..." Aziraphale closed his eyes again contentedly. Crowley was staring directly at him, and the more he did, the less he saw of himself. The angel wearing his face was settling into it as well as he settled into his well-worn victorian waistcoat.

He also settled right into a cuddle.

Unsure of what to do with his hands, Crowley put an arm around Aziraphale's shoulder.

"You know, we'll have to act more convincingly when the time comes..."

"I could say the same for you," said Aziraphale. "You look so tense."

"Can't help it. World almost ended and all that. More wine?"

"If you will."

Crowley reached for a bottle that was really quite definitely there next to him without even looking. He handed it to Aziraphale, who took the first swig, a gentle smile gracing his face. _His_ face. Every line of it.

A moment of indeterminate length passed, between the drinking and the cuddling, where there was not much else to say. Aziraphale relaxed, nestling into the body that was formerly his, as both of them sank into the sofa. Crowley broke the silence.

"Angel, have you ever... slept?"

"No," said Aziraphale truthfully, opening his eyes but not really looking at anything. He had enjoyed many earthly pleasures in six thousand years, but sleep had always seemed like a waste of perfectly good reading or eating or feeding ducks time. 

"Because it seems to me you're dozing off." Crowley's wayward hand had found its way into Aziraphale's hair, brushing through it tenderly.

"Don't need sleep," said Aziraphale, his eyes half-lidded, his voice dropping to a soft breath.

"You may not need it," said Crowley, "but you sure as hel- er, heav- uh, something, deserve it."

" 'mnot gettin' tempted."

"Not everything is about temptation, angel."

"Thwart your wiles."

"As if we still have to."

"Force of habit."

They lapsed into silence again. 

For his part, Aziraphale was getting used to more than just a significantly higher number of angles. The events of the last day had put him through the wringer; he had lost the body he’d used since Eden, and jumping across the globe searching for a receptive replacement (an ironic echo of a conversation in a bar ringing somewhere in the back of his mind) had given him far more experience in occupying foreign corporations than he had ever cared to know.

So to be once again beside himself, as it were, was remarkably unremarkable, and that in of itself was disconcerting. 

His focus wasn’t on what his shape wasn’t. It wasn’t that he was currently snuggled against what had previously been his own chest and clothes. It wasn’t that he was in someone else’s body. It was that he was, specifically, in _Crowley's_ body, and was astonished at just how comfortable he felt within. 

Internally, he chuckled, thinking of how decidedly unangelic it was to be this happy inside a demon’s body.

“Crowley,” he said, a soft voice rumbling through a voicebox far more used to shouting. “I need to tell you something.”

“Yes?” Crowley answered, and Aziraphale looked up to see him. Looking at himself through the snake’s eyes—what a thought. Crowley had always carried himself with a sort of resoluteness he tried to hide behind a carefree façade, and now it was plainly visible on the face that was formerly Aziraphale’s.

“Heaven won’t be merciful with you.”

Crowley was unable to hide a scoff. 

“You don’t need to tell me that, angel.”

“No, I mean it.” Aziraphale rolled over to face him as directly as possible. He was starting to understand why Crowley had so much trouble sitting; his limbs were all over the place. “Look, I know it’s been a long time since—” he paused, tried to rephrase. “...I haven’t done something unforgivable. I’ve done something _contemptible_ , and to them, that is worse.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes, visible over the askew sunglasses, cut through Crowley like a hot knife through ice. 

“Crowley, please be careful.”

In Crowley’s mind, he said, _I would never let them harm you_.

What he actually said was, “I will.”

The realization hit them both at the same time.

Their gaze lingered, eyes fixed on each other, a mutual understanding passing between them. Then Aziraphale lowered his head, resting it against Crowley’s chest, feeling his heartbeat against his cheek.

What Aziraphale felt: body heat warming his cold bones, the comfort of a soft lap and worn-in clothes, an arm that hooked around his back just so and a hand that threaded through his hair and made him feel safe— and he understood. This is what Crowley longed for.

What Crowley felt: weight on his chest, fingers decisively pressed into his sides, a body wrapped around his own like a snake clinging to a tree branch, like he might float away if he let go, and the vulnerable intensity of his eyes— and he understood. This is what Aziraphale longed for.

And more than anything, they longed to protect. Not that they hadn't, over the years, saved each other in countless ways, but now, literally assuming each other's vessels, becoming more of one another than ever before, they realized how precious it was to hold each other's safety in their hands, cradled together in the most intimate way possible. To know each other so deeply and so comfortably that they could stand against Heaven and Hell and face their judgement with confidence, trusting that the other would do the same.

All that understanding passed between them. But it was still so, so early. And the flat was so, so quiet. And they were so, so tired. 

Maybe they’d think about it after sunrise. 

For now, Aziraphale basked in the warmth, and Crowley under the weight, and the safety they felt between them lulled them to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I posted a few fics since first writing this; I took a long time editing it several times. I'm still not entirely sure if I achieved what I wanted with it, so any comments are much appreciated.
> 
> The poem referenced is Luís de Camões’ “Transforma-se o Amador na Cousa Amada” (The Lover Transforms Into the Beloved). I found a few different translations but none really captured how I felt about reading it, so I took a shot at it myself. My Portuguese is rather more contemporary than 16th century, so forgive me if it's not entirely accurate.
> 
> _The lover transforms into the beloved,_  
>  _by virtue of imagining too much;_  
>  _no longer have I need for longing,_  
>  _for I have within me the longed-for part._
> 
> _If within her is my transformed soul,_  
>  _what more does the body long to reach?_  
>  _In her alone can it rest,_  
>  _for with herself said soul is connected._
> 
> _But this beautiful and pure semigoddess,_  
>  _like the accident in its subject,_  
>  _just as it conforms to my own soul,_
> 
> _is in the thought like an idea;_  
>  _and the living and pure love of which I am made,_  
>  _as raw matter searches for form._


End file.
